


Our Story Won't Reach It's End

by SeoMad (Allganne)



Category: NCT (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Pacific Rim Fusion, Angst, End of the World, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Kaiju (Pacific Rim), M/M, The Drift (Pacific Rim)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-17
Updated: 2019-01-17
Packaged: 2019-10-11 17:06:35
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 13,934
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17450921
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Allganne/pseuds/SeoMad
Summary: Being a Jaeger Pilot is a short career.They all know it going in.





	Our Story Won't Reach It's End

**Author's Note:**

> This isn't written in order, so no, you're not insane.  
> I'm just a menace to society.  
> Sorry.
> 
> Some of the Jaegers have changed names because of something that may or may not get posted sometime soon.   
> So as reference: 
> 
> Silver Monsoon Johnny & Ten  
> Sierra Razor Hansol & Yuta  
> Typhoon Jury Taeyong & Jaehyun  
> Night Knight Johnny & Jaehyun  
> Terra Yule Taeyong & Yuta  
> Liberty June Jungwoo & Lucas  
> Neo Dancer Taeyong & Ten  
> Techno Dream Mark & Haechan  
> Zero Millenium Renjun, Jeno & Jaemin

Being a Jaeger Pilot is a short career.

They all know it going in.

But that has never made the days any easier when the kaiju win.

Still, Taeyong has never really known it would feel like _this,_ watching in horror through the screens in the conn-pod as one of his friends dies.

Becoming a jaeger pilot is a _privilege_. An honour that means serving humanity for the better. It means standing between the breach and the shoreline with only yourself and the other person hooked into the back of your brain as backup.

Taeyong knows that. He is prepared for losing his own life.

He isn’t prepared for this. He is never prepared for this.

“Silver Monsoon, ready to drop,” comes Johnny’s voice through the speaker. Tight with anger and grief.

Hansol’s pulse monitor is still glaring in a single red line on the screen behind the comms.

Yuta’s is peaking, stressed and in pain, alone in a damaged jaeger taking on water.

Through the rain-blurred holograms, Taeyong watches as Johnny and Ten march Silver Monsoon towards the half-destroyed jaeger and the monster circling it, while Yangyang and Kun hurry to help connect he and Jaehyun into Typhoon Jury, ready to drift.

Level III kaiju.

“Try to push him back to the miracle mile. Distance between you and Sierra Razor will give us time to retrieve Ranger Nakamoto,” comes the solemn voice of Marshall Leeteuk over the comms.

“Understood Mission Control,” Johnny says.

*

Taeyong is eleven years old when a kaiju reaches Seoul.

There is nowhere for anyone to hide, and their teachers are distraught. In the end the only place for them to hide is underground. And even then, it is a soul’s last, desperate hope.

There are nearly a thousand children crouched in the bottom-most carpark on a street corner in Yangcheon, holding hands and trembling as they all listen to the screaming; flinching as everything reverberates from the force of the kaiju destroying the city above them.

It is nearly two days before the trembling stops, and another one before any of them see daylight again.

Seoul is a different city. It is chaos and destruction and death, and they are still only children.

There is a little boy sitting next to Taeyong the whole time, who asks to hold his hand while the Kaiju thunders somewhere overhead and they are all terrified and trembling and quiet.

The boy’s name is Dongyoung and he is ten years old and weedy looking, even in the dark. He is taller than Taeyong and his face is scrunched up in a determined attempt at looking annoyed the entire time. He scoffs at large tremors and pouts when its quiet and he can’t hear the fighter jets. He holds Taeyong’s hand fiercely tight, and never once says anything about Taeyong’s own trembling.

Dongyoung is a little boy, but his heart is already stronger than Taeyong’s will ever be.

When they are all finally led to the surface, they spend four days on what had once been a sports ground, crammed twenty kids to a tent and huddling like puppies.

All waiting for their parents.

Dongyoung finds his brother first, or rather Donghyun finds him. He is fifteen and tenacious and tracks Dongyoung down entirely on his own. But Dongyoung does not let go of Taeyong’s hand to hug his brother, and Donghyun takes one look at Taeyong and hugs him too.

Their parents follow two days later, and it is only then that Dongyoung lets go of Taeyong. He is forced to, when he and Donghyun are all herded onto a bus heading north, where Dongyoung’s Eomma has family.

Taeyong’s parents never arrive. His sister never arrives.

It doesn’t matter how long Taeyong waits.

No one is looking for him, because there is no one left.

*

Taeyong is seventeen when he applies for the SM Jaeger program.

The world before the Kaiju attack is nothing but a distant memory covered in dust and debris.

He is alone, as he has been ever since.

There are thousands like him, thousands of children who have grown up like ghosts.

There is little room for sympathy, even for children; only survival.

The only survival they have are the Jaegers. Colossal machines designed only for the sole purpose of destroying anything that comes out of the Breach.

Everyone has a place in the world these days.

Everyone is replaceable, _has_ to be replaceable.

Taeyong knows that, understands it better than most.

When the Jaeger programs open their doors to recruits Taeyong signs up immediately.

He is alone, and he is willing to fight, if not for himself, then for those whose families actually came back.

He is far easier to replace than anyone else.

*

“Typhoon Jury is preparing to drift, Silver Monsoon. Eta is twelve minutes.”

“Understood, Mission Control.”

“Hold Ridgecrest as close to the miracle mile as possible. Rescue for Ranger Nakamoto is three minutes out.”

“Understood,” Ten says. We can do twelve minutes, easy!”

There is the familiar excitement in Ten’s voice, and the familiar arrogance that has seen him blaze through his two prior kills and every one of the simulations before them.

They are a strange balance to each other, Ten and Johnny.

Johnny is bright and eager on the ground and calm and controlled in their jaeger.

Ten is playful but easily embarrassed; in no way is he an introvert, but he can be almost _shy_ sometimes. But when Ten is mid fight, he is _everything_ any of them have ever dreamed they could be.

Ten moves with grace and speed unmatched, and finding his drift partner in Johnny, someone who stopped being short when he was nine, makes for an amusing comparison when they’re walking together across the Shatterdome.

But in their jaeger, it just _works_.

Taeyong is still jealous, still bitter, only these days he’s not sure if it’s over Johnny or Ten.

Either way, it is Ten’s impulsiveness that is going to cause problems today.

“Bring them back,” Kun murmurs quietly as he adjusts the last straps around Taeyong’s harness.

Taeyong nods.

Kun doesn’t meet his eyes when he slips away.

There’s no more time for emotions now.

No more time to mourn.

“Typhoon Jury, ready for neural handshake in nine! Eight! Seven!”

Taeil counts down from his hub at LOCCENT. Taeyong shoots a glance at Jaehyun, who looks just as determined as ever. He doesn’t look like he’s wavering at all.

Good.

He closes his eyes as Taeil finishes counting and waits for the rush as they enter the drift.

*

Taeyong has never forgotten the day the Kaiju first destroyed Seoul, when it destroyed his family. But he never expects to have to revisit it.

He never expects to meet the little boy who had held his hand in a dark underground carpark for three days. Let alone here, at SM, at the forefront of the fight.

Though, perhaps he should have. Because even the little Dongyoung Taeyong remembers had a stronger heart than him, and _Taeyong_ is here.

Why shouldn’t Dongyoung be?

The scientists and engineers and fighter pilots and mechanics and jaeger pilots never really interact all that much. They are all training for the same goal, but the only time they cross paths is in the dining halls.

Taeyong doesn’t eat alone.

He is shy and typically unsociable compared to almost everyone else, purely because he _doesn’t know_ what to say or do. People think he’s cold and he lets them, rather than let everyone know how afraid he is.

But there is no room to eat alone in the dining hall, and so he doesn’t. But no one ever sits down happily next to him. So, he is shocked when someone does, only to look up into a face he knows.

Kim Dongyoung is not a child anymore, but Taeyong still recognises a child’s face.

He is no longer weedy, but instead appears oddly stretched, like he hasn’t quite grown into his limbs yet. His eyes are sharp, and his mouth curls in a sneer far too easily, but when he smiles it is wide and gummy and it makes Taeyong almost melt.

He calls himself Doyoung now and never explains why.

Taeyong never asks, but he sees Little Dongyoung in almost everything Doyoung does.

And he is the most fascinated by what hadn’t been there before.

The kaiju had turned Taeyong cold.

The kaiju turned Doyoung sharp.

He is easily the smartest person Taeyong has ever met, and on the days where everything is hard and Taeyong is exhausted and his body aches impossibly, the only thing that makes him feel alive is sitting back and watching Doyoung work. Listening to him talk.

He puts things together like he has seen every puzzle in the world before and knows it by heart.

He is taller than Taeyong, and smarter and kinder.

He is perhaps the only thing Taeyong has worth keeping.

Everyone always speaks of the neural handshake. The merging of two jaeger pilots’ memories and consciousness’ together in order to fight the kaiju.

Drift Compatibility, they call it. It’s like soulmates, one of the more romantic trainees says.

Taeyong doesn’t understand the romance.

After all, it’s just science.

He is only eighteen, but he understands the _desire_ to drift and the only person he can ever imagine drifting with is Doyoung.

But Doyoung is far too smart to ever set foot inside a jaeger.

And Taeyong would never let him.

He is far too precious to replace.

*

Taeyong is twenty when they start selecting trainees.

No one ever speaks in absolutes, not when death is an always-hovering mistress.

But their teacher says that those chosen will be moved to one of the Shatterdomes for dedicated training. For the actual chance to become Rangers.

Doyoung looks at him with pride, standing knee deep in the torn remnants of an old jaeger’s lower left leg he’s been rewiring for three days straight. He is covered in oil and his hands are rough, the skin thick and tough and always dry from years of meddling and tinkering and never wearing gloves.

Taeyong looks at the holographic map lighting up the wall behind Doyoung, where the Shatterdomes are lit up like beacons.

And all he can see is his next stop.

The Shatterdome in Hong Kong.

*

In the end there are nearly forty of them, trainees from all over Asia.

They are a mismatched crew with steel spines and desperate eyes.

Children of the Kaiju.

Desperate to fight back.

Many of them come in pairs: siblings and parents and childhood friends and lovers.

But there are still those who are alone, like him.

The only one he can stand is Seo Youngho.

Johnny.

Johnny had already been there when the rest of them arrive in Hong Kong. Scouted during an earlier phase, Johnny had been part of the EXO project. A project that had formed five pilot pairs over the course of a year. Johnny had been too young to meet the elder project standards but too good to let go. 

It’s odd to begin with.

Taeyong’s individual simulation scores are good. He’s come a long, long way than when he had first started.

There are reasons why he’s here, after all, and so they partner him with Johnny, who is far too tall, and seems to be in constant competition with the length of his limbs just standing still.

But he is something else in the simulation.

Taeyong has never had to fight to keep up before, but with Johnny he does. With Johnny it _works._

Without Doyoung, Taeyong has felt adrift, and out of place, but with Johnny, in the simulation, it is impossible to feel alone. It is impossible to feel out of place.

It’s the best feeling in the world.

*

“Pull back, Silver Monsoon, Typhoon Jury is ten miles out. Wait for reinforcements,” Marshall Leeteuk shouts over the comms.

Taeyong and Jaehyun are staring desperately at the screens in their conn-pod as the carrier jets fly them out towards the miracle mile.

They can see the hulking empty shell that used to be Sierra Razor just ahead of them, and directly behind it are the cascading waves and brawling shadows of Silver Monsoon and the kaiju.

But there is nothing they can do but wait; but allow the pilots above them to carry their Jaeger towards the fight.

For all their urgency, it is faster in the air than walking themselves.

They are going to need all the strength they can get, after all.

“Negative, Mission Control. We can take it. Come on Johnny!” Ten crows over the comms and dread flashes through the pair of them. Taeyong doesn’t know if the feeling belongs to him or Jaehyun but it doesn’t matter.

In Typhoon Jury it is simply _theirs._

And their friends are fucking idiots.

“Silver Monsoon, pull back!” Marshall Leeteuk yells but it’s too late.

The screens light up with a series of concurrent explosions as Johnny and Ten start hitting the kaiju one after another with their plasmacaster.

They can hear the actual sound of the kaiju’s infuriated scream as it’s tail snakes up out of the water, far quicker than anything it’s size should be capable of doing.

It slams into Silver Monsoon, knocking her off balance as Johnny and Ten try to raise their left arm to set off another row of blasts. The distraction is enough for the kaiju and it screams again as it launches itself completely at Silver Monsoon.

Jaehyun-Taeyong feels their stomach jolt in terror and Group-Captain Heechul lights up the comms.

“Typhoon Jury, prepare to drop. Prepare to drop! We are rallying air support. Engage at earliest opportunity. We cannot lose another jaeger!”

Taeyong doesn’t know whose heart is beating in his throat, Jaehyun’s or his own. But it doesn’t matter.

They are one in the same.  

“Confirmed, Mission Control,” Taeyong replies as the cables release and they fall together.

*

Even in the Shatterdome the group of trainees grows and dissipates almost daily. There are trainees coming and going before anyone can really know their name.

In the beginning it seems like it is just Johnny and Taeyong and a sea of faces he doesn’t care about.

He misses Doyoung.

Training becomes second to nothing else. There is _nothing_ standing in his way of it now, and with his only friend in the same program, enabling each other is impossibly easy.

Taeyong has never been in as good a shape as he is in the months following his arrival in Hong Kong.

But it isn’t enough.

Living inside the Shatterdome makes everything more painfully real.

He has to stand and watch with everyone else as a jaeger is destroyed and its pilots go down with it.

He learns two very important lessons that day.

  1. Inside the Shatterdome, there can be nothing but another step forward
  2. Johnny Seo is _soft_.



It is the only way Taeyong can describe it.

Johnny barges his way through the crowd in a desperate bid to get away and it is only then that Taeyong remembers Johnny had trained with the EXO project.

He knew those pilots.

He follows.

Johnny is soft, and he’s quiet when he cries.

Johnny only sees the best in the world, the best in people, the hope that gave birth to the jaegers in the first place. He seems to be everything Taeyong has lost, and there is no one he wants to protect more.

Johnny is _sweet._ Perhaps the only truly uncontaminated thing Taeyong has ever found in this rotten world. He shares his joy easily and happily. He is strong and proud and an idiot and Taeyong has never felt less like a hero than right then, with Johnny, kneeling in his barracks crying after friends far gone.

*

The Shatterdome infirmary is a mess of shouting and screaming and blood.

It makes Taeyong’s stomach lurch as he is wheeled after Jaehyun towards the back of the room.

There is no real urgency for them, nothing like the chaos in the critical care wing.

Taeyong has only seen the inside of the infirmary a handful of times in the last two years he’s spent in Hong Kong. Most of them have been medical evals.

It is technically Kun’s domain, but Taeyong has never seen him here before but he can hear him now, behind the far back doors.

The infirmary has also never been this busy before.

Taeyong’s entire body aches and he’s never been more thankful to be off his feet. He isn’t sure he could stand for very long at all, even if he was upright.  

His heart is still racing, even an hour after the Kaiju hit the water and didn’t get back up.

His adrenaline is long gone, and it’s left him exhausted and in pain, but he’s alive, and he’s conscious, which makes Typhoon Jury the most successful of the three jaegers who went out today twice over.

Silver Monsoon has been all but torn to shreds. It is a miracle Johnny and Ten are still alive.

Sierra Razor had not been so lucky.

Yuta was. If luck has anything to do with it.

But then again, Yuta and Hansol were still connected when the Kaiju tore through the left-hand side of the jaeger and…and…

They were still connected when Hansol died.

Taeyong can’t imagine anything worse.

*

Taeyong spends the night in the infirmary next to Jaehyun and listening to the solemn chatter coming from the critical wing.

He doesn’t see Ten or Johnny or Yuta or even Kun the whole time, but he hears them, or what sounds like them.

Yuta keeps shouting.

No one can keep him quiet.

No one wants to.

No one knows how to help someone who was one half of a whole being and felt the other half die.

Taeyong barely sleeps, lying awake but drowsy from whatever meds have been slipped into his saline bag by one of Kun’s sweet smiling boys.

Jaehyun speaks up every now and again, and Taeyong tries to answer properly but he’s not sure how coherent he is.

Jaehyun always looks like he understands, and not for the first time does Taeyong wish that the younger boy didn’t.

Beautiful, special, confident Jaehyun, who is every inch the heroic Jaeger pilot they advertise all over the world.

Jaehyun who would be perfect for TV if only his drift partner wasn’t so unsociable.

Taeyong can say what people want him to, but in the end, the only thing that’s ever mattered is the Breach. Is the fight and the dedication and the ambition to be better, better, _best_ than whatever hell comes out of it next.

It is one of the only reasons that he and Jaehyun are compatible at all.

They work well together.

But it _is_ work.

They aren’t like so many others, whose partnerships are more. Who balance each other out in more than just a giant machine.

Taeyong envies them.

Jaehyun tries occasionally, locking the door to their barracks and coming to Taeyong’s bed instead of his own.

It’s always good.

It’s always better than good. Kings would kill to get their hands on Jung Jaehyun, and Taeyong is not quite so broken as to not know how to appreciate _that._

But it isn’t the answer the way Jaehyun hopes it will be. Jaehyun, who admired him and enjoyed his company and wanted to drift with Taeyong, _two of the best pilots, fighting together, taking on the world,_ his memories whisper in the Drift.

It’s nice, being with Jaehyun, it makes the world less awful, but it doesn’t fix them.

There are days Taeyong doesn’t know if they fuck because they drift, or they drift because they fuck but it reaches the same conclusions anyway.

They are together, they work, and they are _powerful_.

They are Children of the Kaiju and Pilots of the Breach.

They are only as strong as the power of their grip on each other, and Taeyong is willing to hold on until he can’t anymore.

There are days where Taeyong knows that if it came down to it, he would die for Jaehyun.

And there are also days like this, listening in the dark to the sound of Yuta screaming, where Taeyong thinks _maybe_ _he_ _will._

*

When Taeyong opens the door to his barracks he is dead on his feet and twice as exhausted as when he’d first been pulled out of the jaeger.

That is until he sees the whole world just sitting there waiting for him.

Doyoungie gets up off Taeyong’s bed, his hair longer than Taeyong has ever seen it and messy. He’s travel worn and there are dark bags under his eyes but it doesn’t matter because he’s _here._

Doyoung crosses the room in an instant to sweep Taeyong into the hug he hasn’t had for almost two whole years and the world around them shatters and falls away.

“You’re here, why are you here?” he asks Doyoung’s collar bones, not moving in the slightest to ask the only questions bouncing around his head.

He can feel Doyoungie smile, because he just _can._

“You don’t think I’d let you almost get yourself killed, do you?” he says, softly, in the way he only ever does for Taeyong.

The world is sharp and so is Doyoungie, but not for him.

Never for him.

Taeyong is crying like he can never stop, but he doesn’t move, he just hugs him harder.

“They finally gave me the workshop, Yongie,” Doyoung whispers, one hand in Taeyong’s hair and the other keeping them both upright.

“They gave me the workshop and the jaegers and I’m not going _anywhere.”_

*

It takes three months before Johnny comes back.

Silence is impossible in the Shatterdome. It’s a world that never sleeps.

But it is always lonely.

Even with Doyoung, there are so many of them missing.

Johnny is the first to come back and he doesn’t know about Ten or Yuta, he tells Taeyong, as they hug in the doorway of the barracks. Taeyong feels small again in Johnny’s enormous grasp, with his wide shoulders and impossible height.

It’s the best feeling in the world right then.

He tries desperately to enjoy it.

The world feels okay for a few days before Key and Taemin ruin it. They call them together to run sims again, looking coy and saying they have something new Marshall Leeteuk wants to try. 

But instead of Ten, it’s _Yuta_ waiting with Jaehyun, when Taeyong and Johnny finally reach the simulators.

“We have some changes we think are going to work,” Taemin says with a smirk that makes Taeyong uneasy.

*

Being without Doyoung for so long has ached like a missing limb and finally having him at the Shatterdome is still akin to finding a lost, treasured thing.

Not much has changed between them, not that they can say the same for themselves.

Taeyong is a Jaeger pilot with three confirmed kills to his name.

Doyoung is Head Mechanical Engineer. His talents have finally been realised and Taeyong can’t wait for the world to reap the results.

He cannot actually believe how much he has missed him, and he spends most of his days marvelling at the depth of Doyoung’s brain as he potters around the enormous workshop Marshall Leeteuk gave him.

Doyoung talks, happily chatting away about his concepts and formulas and the near constant ineptitude of any spot welder Doyoung has _ever met_.

Taeyong sits and stares and listens and feels far more content than he can ever remember being.

The strangest part is that he does not miss the jaegers.

He misses Johnny, and Ten, and Yuta and Jaehyun and _Hansol_.

But he no longer misses Doyoung and everything else seems to balance out to nothingness just hearing him talk.

Doyoungie turns to look at him sometimes, falling quiet and just _looking_ at Taeyong and he doesn’t know a single one of the thousand words that look is saying.

He doesn’t squirm under Doyoung’s gaze the way he does with Jaehyun or Ten.

He doesn’t feel sad or anxious or concerned.

Just, some indescribable feeling that is nameless and boundless and _good_.

*

There is a new jaeger.

The first featuring upgrades from their new mechanical engineer.

Key grins as he pulls up the specs. A Mark IV that’s almost half the size again of the last jaeger that left production.

It’s a monster of a thing and apparently no one they’ve put in it so far as been able to carry the neural surge for more than a single test run along the coast.

There are four of them in the room and one empty jaeger in her bay.

Johnny. Taeyong. Jaehyun and Yuta.

“Marshall Leeteuk wants Johnny and Jaehyun to run her,” Taemin says and something sharp lurches in Taeyong’s stomach where he’s sitting. Jealousy and something bitter he tries desperately to swallow when Yuta glances at him uneasily.

“So that means you want me and Taeyong to drift too, right? That’s why I’m here,” Yuta says before Taemin says anything. Key makes a face.

“Not quite. We think Taeyong will work great with Ten once he comes back and until then Taeyong has been supervising some of the rookies in the simulators and the Marshall reckons he’s the best person to help you find a new pilot.”

“Oh, right. Of course,” Taeyong says, ignoring the rush of disappointment knowing that he’s _grounded._

Taemin flashes him a smile.

“Don’t worry, you’ll be back out there in no time.”

“It’s gonna be great,” Key says with another smile.

It isn’t.

Yuta was connected to Hansol when he died. He was left alone in their jaeger’s head while the whole machine started to take on water. Three months on the sidelines wasn’t going to calm that down.

It hasn’t.

Taeyong had turned to training the rookies to get out of his own head and out of his room during down time. Jaehyun had been stink eyeing him over dinner almost nightly, telling him what a wet blanket he’s been being. And he is, there’s no argument to it.

Perhaps especially with the new arrival of his Doyoung.

The Shatterdome had been shaken after losing Hansol and grounding Yuta, Johnny and Ten all in the same event. It wasn’t uncommon to lose pilots, but badly injuring three, losing one and having to send out a _third_ jaeger was a lot for the Shatterdome to deal with.

But for Taeyong it’s been personal. He had grown into this place with Johnny, Yuta and Hansol. They had been their own little group in the beginning. The only person he was closer to in the world was Doyoung.

Doyoung, who is finally _here_ , but in the process of completely revolutionising jaeger engineering and pissing off everyone in the workshops.

It had been Doyoung’s suggestion, helping to train the rookies, in an attempt to keep Taeyong out of his workshop while he stripped it bare and bossed everyone around rebuilding it.

Doyoung had been kind about his lurking for a little while, but he doesn’t have the strongest sense of patience and it had ended eventually.

There is only so much hovering he could take.

Taeyong understands that.

Thankfully, teaching the rookies has been surprisingly calming.

They are dumb nervous kids, but they’re hard working and they all have serious potential that Taeyong actually envies.

Mark and Donghyuck are the obvious favourites for the next jaeger out of production, which is uncomfortably soon. Friends who had formed in training, they fought each other like cats and dogs at absolutely every opportunity, but they work terrifyingly in sync whenever they’re in the simulator.

The oldest of the bunch, Taeyong knows it’s only a matter of time before they find themselves walking the miracle mile.

The others are young, but bold and bright, and he has his favourites there too.

Imagining any of them with Yuta is strange.

Yuta has a sharpness to him he didn’t have before; something harsh and impatient and volatile. Taeyong doesn’t really understand why Marshall Leeteuk wants to put him back out there so quickly.

Yuta just wants revenge, and Taeyong doesn’t think any of the kids he knows are going to be able to handle what Yuta’s brain is going to throw at them.

He doesn’t suggest his favourites.

Renjun, Jeno and Jaemin are young, just older and younger than Haechan respectively, and it makes Taeyong’s skin itch to even think about splitting them up. But they’re the natural successors to Mark and Donghyuck's upcoming empty top spot.

And as a rare pilot trio Doyoung is going to both hate and love building a jaeger for them eventually.

Luckily there are plenty of other rookies desperate for a shot. Taeyong is glad he’s not the one in Yuta’s spot, picking from the untested and desperate.

Even in the simulator Yuta destroys them. Two, three, four in a row, Yuta wipes the kids out. He’s too blunt, leading the charge, too impatient to even contemplate working in tandem which is what defines being inside of a jaeger.

The longer it goes on the more uneasy Taeyong gets, he feels like he’s walking the miracle mile again, except instead of a kaiju there’s Marshall Leeteuk at the end.

In the end, it happens on its own.

One of the kids bails too early, and even in the simulator it’s disorientating to lose the other half of the jaeger. Not to mention that Yuta is still unstable, so Taeyong goes in to shut it down.

Yuta rejects him, hard, to begin with, but Taeyong has done this before, he knows the drift just as well as Yuta does and he pushes back hard enough that Yuta retreats.

And, surprisingly, he settles.

It’s impossible and immediate and it’s the nail in the coffin that has been waiting for them for weeks.

*

This was always the end goal, Taeyong knows, as he looks at Yuta twitching anxiously while they wait.  

Marshall Leeteuk didn’t force them; they found their way on their own.

Not that it helps now.

Drifting is nothing like the romantic, heroic notion the world pretends it is.

It is draining and exposing and terrifying, and that is even if it goes wrong.

It’s worse if it works.

The world pretends that there is only one. You only ever have to do this _once._

Taeyong is an outlier here.

So is Yuta.

They have both done this before, and it’s likely they’ll both have to do it again.

It is no less daunting with the knowledge they already have.

The drift is about partnership, it is about balance.

It is about forming two halves of the one whole.

They have to _share everything._

Taeyong knows what it’s like to have a family, because Jaehyun gave him that. Yuta gives him sisters, and chasing a soccer ball in the park. He gives him cherry blossoms and takoyaki and an entirely new language.

Taeyong gives him the cark park and the orphanages and _Doyoung_.

There is a moment where Taeyong thinks it might be settling, where it might have worked.

And then Yuta chases the rabbit, _hard_.

Level III Kaiju.

Ridgecrest.

The whole experience flashes through Taeyong’s skull faster than anything he has ever experienced before. It moves too rapidly for him to almost comprehend the terror of it. Of feeling something far too large and far too sharp _shred_ everything before half of himself just _disappears._

 _Hansol_ disappears _._

Taeil rushes to shut the drift down, but its too little too late and Yuta breaks down again.

Taeyong just breaks.

*

It takes nearly a month before they manage to get into the newly renamed Terra Yule without nearly destroying the Shatterdome.

They only get one good practice run before a Category IV comes through the breach headed for the mainland and there isn’t anyone else in the Shatterdome ready to take it.

They get sent out.

Johnny and Jaehyun had none of the problems he and Yuta had from the moment they had started their practice runs. The pair of them had hit the ground running and Night Knight works with them perfectly. They have none of the issues dealing with the large jaeger that had affected any of the other pilots. They worked so well they had become the face of the Dome and are in Seoul when the Kaiju comes through.

Instead Taeyong and Yuta get sent out with a rookie pair who have been just transferred in from the Tokyo dome. Kids, really, who have sim scores to envy and enough practice in the Jaeger for this to work.

Yukhei and Jungwoo are contradictions to each other in the wildest sense. But their mild obsession with each other carries over into their jaeger perfectly.

Taeyong doesn’t know who has been sent out to supervise who as they march out into the open ocean.

Everything that had held him and Yuta back seems to disappear once they get out to the miracle mile, Yukhei and Jungwoo in Liberty June waiting a few hundred metres to their left.

The pair of them wait out the kaiju as it heads closer to the shoreline.

It’s not either of he or Yuta’s fastest kills, but it’s done, and it’s done without touching the shoreline. It seems like a miracle they do it at all, considering how well they’ve drifted recently. The two jaegers aren’t necessarily _destroyed_ either, but it’s more than enough to set Doyoungie off once they march them back to the Shatterdome with more than one arm between them hanging a little loose.  

But he and Yuta seems to work well enough that Marshall Leeteuk gives them the nod of approval and Taeyong knows in that moment that this is how it’s going to be.

Yuta wraps his arm around Taeyong’s neck and brings him in close.

He knows everything now.

*

A year means nothing and everything all at once.

In the Shatterdome a year goes by in a heartbeat and a single day drags on for eons.

It is only with Doyoung close again, beside him, touching him, that Taeyong remembers how long a year actually is, let alone two.

He has missed him, more than there are words, and in some warped sense, it hurts to have him close again.

To know that he had lost him for so long.

He is different.

Doyoungie is an adult too now. His shoulders are broader, and his facial features seem to suit him much better now, as if he has finally grown into them. There are days where he looks elfin and otherworldly, even covered in dust and grease and dirt.

But he still twitches his nose a little when he eats, and there is still a line between his brows when he focuses too deeply on what is in front of him. He still pouts and doesn’t realise he’s doing it, and Taeyongs heart breaks all over again every time he looks his way and smiles.

Doyoung’s smile is still wide and gummy and beautiful.

He still fills two food trays in the cafeteria so Taeyong doesn’t have to wait and spends almost an entire paycheck on a single block of Taeyong’s favourite chocolate just to laugh at his reaction. He still mutters under his breath while he’s working, and always jerks himself out of a long, runaway thought to make sure Taeyong is still where he left him.

It has been a long two years spent almost entirely in pixels.

And Taeyong has spent it finding a thousand reasons to keep fighting. A thousand reasons for every time it had got too hard.

But having Doyoungie _here_ , with _him,_ gives him a million more every time he looks his way.

*

In the early days of the Breach, when the first Jaegers marched out to meet them Taeyong could remember there had only ever been one name on anyone’s lips in Seoul.

 _Super Junior_.

And years later when the breach started spitting out kaiju like there was no tomorrow, Super Junior called for pilots to take up their mantle.

It didn’t matter where the jaegers came from. So long as they came.

And Taeyong has always been ready to step up to the mark if he is needed.

There were hundreds of applicants, he remembered. Standing in line for evaluation that day in the SM Building, standing under the empty-socketed gaze of a kaiju skull.

He could remember each step of the evaluations until there was only a hundred of them, staying in dorms.

Most of them were in pairs.

Siblings. Parents. Married Couples. Childhood Friends.

Taeyong had no one. He was an outlier, it seemed, but it _worked._

Every time he thought he was done they kept him. And steadily a hundred trainees dropped to fifty, and fifty to twenty.

And then there was only a dozen of them.

He could remember each face with ease.

After all, some of them had come with him to Hong Kong.

But for the longest time the only one worth knowing was Johnny.

And when Johnny kissed him, he seemed liked the only thing in the world worth saving.

Despite years of training, of hearing the words _drift compatible,_ Taeyong has never thought he would actually experience it until it hits him like a brick.

He’s mid spar when Johnny pulls his punch at the last minute to avoid hitting Taeyong in the face, and Taeyong flinches back at the same moment.

It is an instinctual thing, he realises, when they fight again, and he knows exactly what Johnny is going to do. Johnny seems to know him, too. They adjust themselves to balance their weight and height and speed without even thinking and Taeyong finally thinks he understands what drift compatible actually means.

Or at least he thinks he does.

Because the very next day Ten arrives and everything goes to shit immediately.

Ten is a hurricane.

As part of an influx of Trainees from Thailand, Ten is the star of the show and seems to leave everyone lacking.

He is quick witted and charismatic and moves with a fluidity that puts _everyone_ to shame.

Worst of all he is incredibly easy to like.

And Taeyong has to stand back and watch as he and Johnny click _immediately_.

It’s compelling to watch, even if it does break his heart a little.

Their instructors move with the speed of carrion birds and the pair go in for their first neural handshake less then twelve hours after that first spar in the training room.

They drift like a dream.

And Taeyong has never felt more alone than in that moment in his empty barracks.

Staring at Doyoung’s contact picture ready to call and having no idea what to say.

Nothing makes sense after that.

For almost a year he had been told that he would find someone who could be his other half. Who could fight with him to beat the monsters no one could beat alone.

He had relied on the fact that no one had ever told him how quickly it would happen. How perfectly a partner could be found.

Taeyong has been alone half his life. He is a child of the kaiju, an orphan who has grown up knowing the monsters will always come back.

Losing Johnny somehow feels like losing hope.

Here, in the Shatterdome, Johnny is all he has.                                                        

Had.

The only thing he has left now is the fight. And fighting is easy.

*

Taeyong has been paired up with almost everyone in the training rooms before the year is out.

The instructors pair him with anyone and everyone.

But he is capable, and he adapts to whoever they give him.

But he envies the proper partners like Yuta and Hansol. Ten and Johnny.

Neither pair have a jaeger yet, they’re too untrained, Group-Captain Heechul says as he waves a stick around and orders everyone to do another lap of the gym.

But timing or not, Taeyong never doubts that the two pairs will walk the miracle mile together eventually.

There are roughly a dozen Rookies left by the time New Year rolls around.  Without Johnny, Ten, Yuta & Hansol there are four others left and Taeyong knows he doesn’t stand a chance with any of them.

And then new rookies arrive.

Jaehyun arrives.

He isn’t Johnny. Or Ten. And they aren’t Yuta and Hansol.

But it works.

Jaehyun is bright. He is a handsome boy everyone loves to complement. He has dimples and a smile that makes Taeyong’s heart flutter when he’s at his weakest. Best of all he is so very easy to love.

They don’t get picked immediately.

It takes almost a month before they get called to the test.

He doesn’t tell Doyoung when they video call.

He doesn’t want him to know if he fails.

Instead he sits in Johnny and Ten’s room and lets Johnny warn him, what the drift is like, for nearly an hour.

In the end it’s nothing like Johnny had warned. It is everything and nothing and so much better and so much worse.

Jaehyun is cute, with his flop of hair and infectious smile.

 _Jaehyun_ is ambitious. Powerful. There is a sharpness to him that seems to defy what Taeyong thought he knew. There is so much pride in him Taeyong thinks he could drown in the resentment and jealousy and fear that had only turned a scared boy into someone determined to succeed.

He is strong in all the places Taeyong wavers, and they work.

Their drift works.

“Things look good!” Taeil says from LOCCENT, sounding surprised.

*

The history of the Jaeger program is a short one.

There are days Taeyong forgets that it’s only something that has barely existed for ten years.

Today is not one of them, not when one of Super Junior’s pilots is sitting in front of him.

Talking to him like an equal.

Group-Captain Kim Heechul is a hero. _Taeyong’s_ hero, and he knows what Heechul is going to ask him. It doesn’t take much to put two and two together. Then again, even knowing what he does, he can’t say no. 

“You and Yuta _are_ drift compatible, Taeyong. And we’d like you to try.”

Heechul has the memories of every fallen Jaeger pilot in his eyes as he looks Taeyong down.

“How did you convince Marshall Leeteuk to clear him?” he asks.

Heechul sighs.

“He’s angry. We won’t deny that. Yuta wants to kill Kaiju, and right now that’s not something we can ignore. We’re running out of jaegers and we’re running out of experienced pilots. Yuta has the experience. You have the temperament and your history together makes you compatible.”

“What about Jaehyun?”

“Jaehyun has agreed to work with Johnny, and the two of them are the only ones capable of running Night Knight based on Dr Qian’s numbers.”

“What about Ten?”

“Ten wants to come back, but his injury needs proper time to be able to withstand the load of the jaegers. There’s still at least three months before he’ll be back, six if we’re being honest, and we can’t trust the Breach that long. The time between each Event is getting shorter and shorter, and the Pan Pacific Defence Corps is starting to put pressures on our funding.”

“What will happen once Ten comes back then?”

Heechul adjusts the tiny figure of Super Junior sitting beside his desk monitor.

“If you and Yuta work, Taeyong, then Ten will get his pick of the new recruits. If Yuta doesn’t work, then Yuta gets his pick. But objectively speaking, I’ve seen how you work. I’ve seen how you drift. You’re the only one who I’d put money on being able to work with goddamn anybody.”

*

Taeyong can feel the moment the connection wavers.

It’s not something he’s ever felt before.

He can feel Yuta loud and strong, pulsing like a heartbeat the moment Taeil starts up the connection.

Yuta is vibrant and powerful, and it always makes Taeyong’s heart skip a beat.

And it withers in a millisecond.

They are together, they are one and then he is grasping at a connection that seems to shred under its own weight.

Taeyong shouts, feeling Yuta just slip through his fingers like sand and then all of a sudden the drift is _gone._

The Drift is gone, and Yuta is in the harness next to him, just five feet away, barely upright, eyes glassy and there is blood trickling down his face like a river.

It is bright red and unchecked and Taeyong can’t feel him.

Yuta is alive and right there and Taeyong _can’t feel him._

The doors open a moment later and the room descends into chaos.

*

Yuta cannot drift again.

It is knowledge shared between each and every Ranger like a whisper on a breeze. It is a fate they have all known existed.

They have all been warned, before.

Being a jaeger pilot has always been a short career.

They have all known it from the very beginning.

If the Breach does not kill them, then their own jaegers will.

It is why they split the neural surge between two brains in the first place.

It helps every single person in the Shatterdome pretend that things are okay. The risks are halved. A load shared is a load halved.

In the end it just gives them _time_.

Time to train, time to fight.

Time to make peace with their gods, and with what is left of their families.

Yuta fights for his sisters, and he stops fighting for them, too.

*

They call him Winwin.

Kun has called in every favour he can across half of China, Johnny says, while they wait for Yuta to wake up.

Taeyong doesn’t know who the boy is, or why, but he has never seen anyone look as relieved to see someone as Kun does when Winwin gets off the helipad.

They talk too fast for Taeyong to ever keep up. Not that he could anyway; words in any language are still blurring together uselessly. He hasn’t had a full proper conversation since their connection failed.

Thankfully, things happen quickly.

“Kun did say he never loses,” Jaehyun laughs when the news comes in hours later that Yuta is awake.

No one know how he did it. Even Doyoung, who spends the afternoon looking frustrated and banging things together in his workshop like a child having a temper tantrum.

Nothing has ever annoyed Doyoungie more than his inability to translate human anatomy into mechanical engineering.

Even after his success Winwin still lurks in the Infirmary like he is afraid of sunshine, always looking pensive when Taeyong sees him, with a pen behind one ear and his tablet tucked under one arm.

He talks happily with Kun, and happier still with Kun’s new assistant Yangyang, that it makes Taeyong want to cry but every other interaction he has seems anxious.

But, somehow even more of a miracle, Winwin seems to be the only one capable of making Yuta smile after he’s told that he’s grounded.

*

“You know what happened with Yuta, don’t you?” Taeyong asks, pushing a folded tissue marked with red back into his pocket.

It’s been two weeks since Yuta shut down mid drift, and things still don’t make sense.

Because no one who knows anything will _say_ anything.

“Why it happened.”

There are rumours, there has _always_ been rumours amongst the pilots. About what happens when you can’t handle the neural load of the jaegers anymore.

Doyoung has his back turned, fussing with a thick wad of wires from a conn-pod almost as wide as his arm.

Taeyong can see him tense. Can see the way Doyoung refuses to look in his direction.

“I’m not entirely sure,” he says, finally, turning to flash Taeyong a half smile.

“Kun thinks it might have something to do with Hansol, but no one knows for sure.”

Taeyong’s heart sinks.

 _Liar_.

*

It’s been raining for three days when Ten returns to the Shatterdome.

He brings a baby recruit with him from Tokyo where Tennie has been torturing the other applicants and ruining their training simulations for months.

Or so Doyoung’s rumours go.

They don’t get along particularly placidly, Tennie and Doyoung, but Taeyong knows Doyoung enjoys Ten’s company more than he’ll ever admit.

Johnny is much more upfront about his old drift partner.

He nearly knocks Ten off his feet the moment Ten gets out of the way of the helicopter’s rotor blades, with his little recruit Kunhang struggling to carry three bags behind him.

Taeyong glances between Jaehyun and Doyoung, both of whom are laughing at the poor rookie who doesn’t seem to know any better and call Ten’s bluff.

Johnny is busy trying to wrap his entire body around Ten’s torso for him to bother scolding or saving anyone.

So Taeyong does it for him, brushing past the two ignoramus’ wailing at each other and approaches the kid with a smile.

“Here, let me grab one of those,” he says.

The boy smiles, and Taeyong can understand right then why Ten picked this rookie to bring with him.

They’re all heartbreakers, in the end.

He’s going to fit right in.

*

“So, you still haven’t done anything about Doyoung, have you,” Ten asks later that night when the welcome party is over and it’s just the two of them.

There is a new plaque on the door, and a new emblem on their jackets. There’s a new mattress for Ten, but instead of breaking it in he’s curled up with Taeyong like the physical contact will erase the months and months worth of distance that has stretched between them up until now.

He has missed Ten too much to even bother pretending to complain.

He has missed Tennie far too much.

“It’s complicated,” he whispers, tucking his head into Ten’s chest and enjoying the nimble fingers playing with his hair.

Ten’s laugh is contagious.

“It’s really not. The only thing getting in your way is you.”

“I can’t do it to him. I can’t give him what he wants and then kiss him goodbye every time we march out to the mile.”

“But you’re still doing it, Yongie. The only difference is that you don’t kiss him. He’s loved you longer than you realise.”

“I know. I just, I just can’t.”

“Well I always knew you were stupid,” Tennie muses and laughs when Taeyong pokes him in retribution.

It’s not the end to the discussion. Ten has always been persistent, and Taeyong knows he’s right.

*

It is an inevitability of their profession, or so they say.

Death is something Taeyong has seen, and experienced and even caused.

Rangers are not meant to live long lives.

If the kaiju don’t get them, the Drift will.

Happy endings have never seemed even remotely possible.

But Yuta has always been so perfect at defying all the odds.

Taeyong still remembers Yuta in the Drift. He remembers his home, his family and the frailty of flowers. He knows Yuta’s rage, intimately, and every tremulous corner of his grief.

He knows the way Yuta has used the Breach as his whole existence, both before Hansol and after.

He _knows_ Yuta, just as Yuta knows _him_.

And yet he cannot question the way Yuta smiles from his hospital bed when he says:

“His name is Sicheng.” 

*

“Now that Ten’s coming back, normally we’d put you and Jaehyun back together,” Doyoung says as he leads Taeyong to his private elevator and takes them down. The elevator rattles and groans and Doyoung doesn’t blink, instead just keeps talking and Taeyong cannot look away.

“Ten and Johnny paired up perfectly before, so it should be the natural choice to put everyone back where they started, but we just don’t have the same jaegers available anymore, and we’re concerned about how well either pair would be able to run Night Knight as well as Jaehyun and Johnny do now. It’s a big jaeger, and from Ten’s stats he just doesn’t have the strength to run it long term.”

Taeyong opens his mouth but Doyoung beats him to it.

“Neither do you, Yongie. You just don’t have the numbers,” Taeyong scowls and looks away but he can feel the burn of Doyoung’s gaze still landing on him.

They have known each other too long. Too well.

He can’t help but rue the day that Doyoung decided he was better at designing the jaegers than running around in them.

Though there is nothing on this earth Taeyong would swap for the chance to find that reality.

Doyoung does not belong in a Jaeger.

He belongs where it is _safe_.

But that does not stop Taeyong dreaming occasionally of what they could have done if they’d managed to drift together.

“There’s something though, I think you might like,” Doyoung offers after a moment, the two of them hovering awkwardly while Taeyong decides whether he wants to go and practice in a sulk.

Luckily, he doesn’t.

He looks to Doyoung carefully and can see the way he is trying to act calm and cool.

But he’s twitchy and that means only one thing.

He has something.

Doyoungie is only ever this excited about new tech.

“What’s she called?” he asks.

Doyoung smirks.

“Neo Dancer.”

“That’s _bad_ ,” he grimaces and Doyoung laughs.

“Yeah well it’s still better than Night Knight. I’m never letting Taeil live that one down.”

Taeyong can’t help but chuckle at that.

No one has ever really gotten over that particular name. The jaeger is _huge_ , almost as wide as it is tall, and no one can run it like Johnny. It had gone through two other teams in both Sydney and Panama City before it had reached Johnny and Jaehyun. And it had been _fine_ , because Taeyong seemed to be the only one capable of drifting with Yuta after Hansol’s death. But it had always been temporary. Taeyong had been told to start with he’d end up with Ten once he was back.

He’s just never thought it would take crippling Yuta first before that could happen.

 “So, this is to drift with Ten, is it?” he says.  

Doyoung shrugs, nonchalant, but his smirk is bursting.

“You built me a jaeger, Doyoungie. That’s adorable,” Taeyong giggles.

“Don’t start,” Doyoung replies, still wearing his smirk as he wanders off before stopping a few feet away and glancing back, coyly.

Taeyong grins and after a moment follows after.

“You always said you’d never build me a jaeger,” he asks Doyoungie sourly. Doyoung blushes.

“Yes well, you never needed one before. Which is the most important part,” Doyoung replies, leading them down into the central underground core of the Shatterdome.

Taeyong doesn’t come this far down very often. It is a mess of giddy and nervous engineers running around an absolutely enormous rung of half-built monster killing machines.

A few of the engineers recognize Taeyong as they pass by but far more of them recognize Doyoung and call out greetings or mutter and gossip.

Taeyong feels pride well up in him at the high blush on Doyoung’s cheeks.

Down here it’s Doyoungie who is making all the difference.

Taeyong can’t understand why people don’t know that outside too.  

Doyoung ends up leading him deep into the dome until they reach the very end where a somewhat squat, mostly-built jaeger is hanging in its harness.

“Don’t tell me that’s ours,” he asks, brow raised.

Doyoung shoots him a look as if he’s being stupid.

“That one is for the three little hellspawn. Zero Millenium. She’s in her final stages. But there’s still three months for testing to finish her off first.”

“Do they know?”

“God no. I wouldn’t be able to get rid of Jaemin with a jaeger if he knew. He’d push back development by a year without even trying. He’s almost as bad as _Donghyuck_.” Doyoung mutters as they circle past to reach the last bay where Taeyong takes one look up and gasps.

It’s a jaeger unlike anything he’s ever seen before. She is smaller than any of the others; thinly built, with three central axes’ along the body of the machine to turn and twist. Each arm is long and flexible.

“That’s yours. Neo Dancer,” Doyoung grins.

She’s perfect and revolutionary and Doyoung built her for _him_.

*

The Drift is always different.

It isn’t necessarily meant to be.

Drift Compatibility is the romantic notion of the twenty first century.

You’re only ever meant to have one partner, the story goes.

You’re only meant to have one, and it’s meant to be _perfect._

Perfect balance, perfect harmony, the perfect machine.

Neo Dancer is possibly the closest he’s come so far.

 _Ten_ is probably the closest he’s come so far.

Taeyong still knows Jaehyun. How he moves, how aggressive and proactive he is in the fight.

Yuta was worse, driven by the rage that burned inside of him, the terror that had spawned it in the first place. Yuta was desperation. Jaehyun was ambition.

Ten is determination.

Ten is joy, perhaps more strongly than anyone Taeyong has ever met.

He feels like a contaminant the moment they merge. The moment they drift through the surge of memories and emotions and dreams to find each other on the other side.

It is the fastest it’s ever taken. Their initial calibration.

Tennie looks elated both in the drift and out.

His adrenaline is a fierce thing and now Taeyong understands the rush that had driven Ten and Johnny into that hurricane to avenge Hansol.

Ten is clean and crisp and neither of them are _new_ , but he doesn’t understand how they work so well.

He doesn’t understand it.

But it’s a rush all the same.

Every Drift is different.

“Mission Control, this is Neo Dancer, we are ready to drop,” Tennie grins like he knows all of Taeyong’s secrets.

And now he does.

*

The news comes in the same day they learn the Lima Shatterdome has lost two jaegers against a Level IV kaiju.

The Pan Pacific Defence Corps want to build a wall.

They don’t think the jaegers are working anymore.

There are thousands of miles, stretching out in front of them as he and Ten walk the coastline.  

Hundreds of thousands of people just off shore and idiots in suits think a wall will keep them safe.

Taeyong’s hands are still shaking when they get back to the Shatterdome hours later.

Tennie pulls him out of his harness and holds him steady.

“It’s not going to work,” he says, and he can see it in Ten’s eyes too.

“It’s not,” he agrees, and wipes something red off Taeyong’s lip.

*

They are lying together in Taeyong’s cot again.

Doyoung had come to him, crawling in still covered in oil and grease, but with a thousand yard stare that Taeyong knows something has happened.

He doesn’t ask. He never asks.

Just as Doyoung never asks about the kaiju.

He simply holds his Doyoung, and strokes his hair, listening to him breath.

“Don’t do it again,” he whispers.

Taeyong almost doesn’t catch it, and he asks on reflex and regrets it immediately.

“Please stop drifting,” Doyoung repeats, sounding more and more urgent every time he says it. Until it’s a demand.

“Doyoungie – “

“No. No, you need to stop drifting. Taeyong.”

In all their years together, Doyoung has never once said anything against his career.

Doyoung has always known Taeyong is a Jaeger Pilot, the same way Taeyong has always known Doyoungie is a mechanical engineer.

It is _who they are._

It has cost them both too much to get here.

Everything has a cost, these days. They are simply one of the many who choose to pay it.

Doyoung has never asked him to stop before.

“You know it’s not that simple,” Taeyong replies, reaching out to brush Doyoung’s fringe back from his eyes.

He needs to cut it again.

Doyoung swats his hand away and sits up. The open, wounded expression on his face pinches into a scowl that makes his eyes sharp and Taeyong doesn’t quite know what to do for a moment.

“It should be. It _should_ be that simple,” Doyoung snarls. “You’ve done _enough_. You have your notches on your belt or whatever you do to show off. But you should be done. You should be the one to decide when you stop.”

“And I will be. But it’s _my_ decision, Doyoung.”

“Then do it. Tell the Marshall today. Step down. Stop drifting. Stop fighting.”

“You know I can’t.”

“You can! You _can,_ Taeyong! You don’t have to die doing this.”

“If this is about the nosebleed, Doyoungie, it happens, it’s normal – “

“It’s not! It’s not normal! Hooking yourself into those goddamn machines isn’t normal!”

“You _built me_ one of those machines.”

“And I regret it! I regret doing it. I hated it the moment they strapped you into it!”  

*

Taeyong hasn’t spoken to Doyoung in three days.

He also hasn’t slept in properly in three days, but that is simply a coincidence, he tells himself.

Johnny keeps trying to help, trying to get Taeyong and Doyoung to just _talk._ But after his second attempt Taeyong’s hands start shaking and Ten bristles like a cat and starts putting himself between Taeyong and Johnny like a barricade.

He doesn’t agree with it, Taeyong knows. He can see it in the lines of Ten’s mouth, the gleam in his eyes with that sad, soft expression every time he looks at him.

But he still stops Johnny in his tracks and Taeyong has never appreciated him more.

He feels… brittle, and there is a laundry list of ways he could fix that feeling if only he could _sleep_.

But he can’t.

It feels like there is something crawling underneath his skin, and he simply can’t stop.

He’s putting too much at risk, he knows.

But that doesn’t help either.

There is another Category IV coming through the Breach when Johnny tries to stop them sending him out.

It’s not smart.

But they need every jaeger they can get.

Night Knight is cleared first. Liberty June suit up second and Neo Dancer goes out third.

He can feel Kun and Taeil sharing looks while he and Ten suit up. Their concern is palpable, but no one tries to push.

He feels weary as they’re strapped into the conn-pod and nauseas while they drop down to the rest of Neo Dancer.

Ten takes a moment to look at him while Mission Control start talking through the comms.

“Tell me if you can do this, Yongie. I need to know if you can do this.”

“I’m fine,” he lies.

Ten scowls.

*

Ironcrest nearly wipes them all out.

There are three of them keeping it at bay, three of them walking the mile and yet the kaiju still has the advantage.

Worse, Taeyong is the one pulling them down.

They barely finish it.

It’s Yukhei and Jungwoo who make the final blow, even if their jaeger is barely standing afterwards.

Ten keeps casting Taeyong worried glances every few seconds and Taeyong is closer to his breaking point than he has ever been.

There are tears rolling down his cheeks when the conn-pod is finally pulled up to the Drivesuit room and they are pried piece by piece out of their armour.

Taeyong hates it.

He hates every minute of it, and all he wants is Doyoung.

He wants to apologise, and not apologise and call Doyoung an ass in every language he knows.

But mostly he just wants Doyoung to hold him.

Tennie is still being debolted from his armour when Taeyong breaks free.

He doesn’t care anymore.

He _can’t_ care anymore.

His body is screaming at him the whole distance down to Doyoung’s workshop. His brain is fuzzy and the world is spinning, but he doesn’t care.

He needs to apologize.

“Doyoungie?” Taeyong calls out as he fumbles at the doors to the workshop. His voice is little more than a croak, but it does the job.

Doyoung jolts from where he’s watching Neo Dancer on one of the screens and turns to look at him in an instant. His face morphs into a look of alarm almost immediately.

“Yongie!” Doyoung drops the remote and starts taking large strides across the room towards him.

Taeyong tries to take a step forward and meet him half way, except his body simply _can’t_ anymore. He is far beyond his last dregs and his knees give out before he can stop them.

Doyoung shouts and makes a mad dash to catch him but Taeyong can’t tell whether he does or not when the world just _whites out_ completely.

Things go dark, and he can feel Doyoung shouting, hear his voice breaking.

There is a hand cradling the back of his head and another wrapped awkwardly around his waist and he’s pressed up against something rough and firm. It smells like motor oil.

And he fades out again to the sound of Doyoung calling his name like he’s never heard before.

*

“You have done enough,” Doyoung says, softly, quietly, a whisper or a prayer and entirely the truth as he looks down at Taeyong.

They are curled up in Taeyong’s bunk, with Doyoung against the wall and Taeyong with his head in Doyoung’s lap. He can see the earnest look in Doyoungie’s eyes, the wounded fear that is whole and unfamiliar as Doyoung looks down at him and the world has never felt heavier.

_You have done enough._

His heart feels fit to burst, and so he closes his eyes and that hurts it too.

Doyoung starts brushing his fingers through Taeyong’s hair and his muscles relax one by one under his gentle touch.

“I wish I’d never built you that jaeger,” Doyoung whispers, in the transient space between them as he runs a single finger down over Taeyong’s nose, feather light and trembling.

A truth, expelled into the air in a moment of desperation, like an offering to long lost gods.

Taeyong doesn’t know if he was meant to hear it, or if Doyoung meant to say it, but it hangs between them, heavy, but precious all the same.

*

“Shit!”

There is blood running down Taeyong’s lip and dripping onto his chin and Doyoung has never looked as panicked as he does then, crossing the space between them in a heartbeat.

He presses a tissue to Taeyong’s face and holds it there, even though he’s shaking.

Taeyong reaches up to steady him.

Doyoungie’s eyes are wide and Taeyong has never seen him look like that except when he was ten years old and they were crouched in the dark in an underground carpark.

*

He can hear Doyoung shouting from the hallway and it’s so loud and desperate his voice cracks and Taeyong comes to a stop just outside Doyoung’s workshop out of sheer shock.  

Taeyong has never heard Doyoung shout like that, and he has never heard Kun shout at all.

“You can’t keep doing this to him! He can’t handle it!”

“He can! He’s the _only_ _one_ who can. We haven’t seen anyone like him, Doyoung! No one else has been capable of swapping partners and drifting every time like he can. He’s _valuable_.”

“He can’t handle the strain!”

“You’re underestimating him.”

“Kun, what have you _done_?!”

“Nothing! I’ve been keeping an eye on him, Doyoung. He’s holding up – “

“Since when is his brain leaking out his nose ‘holding up’?”

“Taeyong hasn’t suffered any nosebleeds since we moved him from Jaehyun. I’ve made sure of it, I’ve kept a record.”

“Well, record this one!”

Doyoung has also never hit anyone before.

His hands are stronger than most, and can cause more damage, as Kun’s face easily attests to.

It is not because he has a talent for hitting things, but rather that he has far better faculties to cause harm.

He is tall and broad and his hands are strong and tough from years of playing around with metal without gloves.

Taeyong is frozen too long in the hallway to _stop_ Doyoung hitting Kun once, but he’s fast enough he can pull him off before he gets in a _second_ swing.

Doyoung has never looked as angry as he does then, chest heaving as he pulls himself out of Taeyong’s grasp and with a wide-eyed glance he stalks out of the room completely.

Kun, on the other hand, hunched over, just looks sad.

“It was never meant to be like this, Taeyong,” he says and Taeyong tries to ignore the way his stomach jolts as he finally gives chase.

*

Taeyong’s head hurts, but his heart is pounding louder now.

Doyoung looks small where he’s sitting with his head in his hands on Taeyong’s bed.

He gives in the moment Taeyong kneels down in front of him and gently pries his hands away from his face.

His knuckles are red and split and Taeyong presses them to his lips and kisses each of them, one by one.

Doyoungie doesn’t say anything, just watches him, and tries to hold everything in.

He doesn’t succeed very well, his lip wobbling and his eyes glassy.

Doyoung is not like Taeyong, and Taeyong has always been glad for it.

He takes his time to wrap Doyoung’s hands gently.

There is nothing in Taeyong right then except some rampant misguided guilt. He isn’t guilty for the enormous black eye Kun is sporting, but rather what drove _Doyoung_ to cause someone else harm.

A _friend_ harm.

Taeyong has spent the last handful of years trying to keep Doyoung as far from the violence of their profession as he can. It is the only protection he can offer him, knowing that in reality, Doyoungie does more damage than he ever will.

Doyoung is the one designing the jaegers.

Doyoung is the one designing the weapons Taeyong uses to kill monsters.

“I thought if any jaeger would be safe it would be mine,” Doyoung whispers, his voice cracking as he gently runs a finger over Taeyong’s cheek.

“I thought it could take care of you. But it’s not. My jaeger is the one you’re going to die in.”

*

The world comes back slowly, in the sharp smell of antiseptic and the loud hum of the Shatterdome air conditioners.

His brain is still foggy, but it knows the voices around him that draw him up and out of the determined pull of exhaustion.

Doyoung looks haunted, there are shadows black under his eyes, and his lips are dry and gnawed raw. The world keeps sliding in and out of focus but Doyoung is the same. He reaches out immediately and his expression is soft but pinched with worry. He cards his hands through Taeyong’s hair and he looks close to crying.

Taeyong wants nothing more than to touch him back but even lifting his head is a herculean task.

Doyoung kisses the back of his hand and strokes his hair until he falls asleep again.

The next time he’s awake Ten is there, sitting on the edge of his bed staring expectantly at Doyoung until Doyoung notices Taeyong is awake.

Tennie looks tired too. He looks sad, and Taeyong tries to tell him to go to bed but can’t make the words form on his tongue.

Doyoung looks harried again.

Taeyong hates it.

“You’re fucking dumb,” Ten says, but he lies down next to him and wraps his arms around Taeyong like a koala and sounds close to tears.

“I fucking hate you.”

*

The fact they made it back to the Shatterdome at all seems like an absolute miracle, Taeyong thinks, as he watches the footage of the fight with Ironcrest.

Kun says much the same.

It is not something Taeyong can claim ignorance of.

After Yuta, there has been no way of ignoring what the bleeding means.

Suiting up that day had been stupid in a thousand ways.

His body had reaped the consequences a thousand-fold.

He watches as Ironcrest slips past Neo Dancer because he was too slow to block the blow.

Taeyong’s ineptitude had nearly cost Yukhei and Jungwoo their lives.

 _Never_ _again_.

Not that he has much time left anyway.

“It’s going to kill me, isn’t it? If I keep Drifting,” he says, turning to look where Kun is sitting next to the bed.

Kun looks haggard.

Like all his mistakes have come to haunt him all at once. Taeyong knows the feeling.

“It’s going to kill all of you,” Kun whispers, painfully. “It was never meant to be used like this, Taeyong. None of this is. The Jaegers, the Pons System. It was always just a temporary fix, except we haven’t figured out the final solution yet either and we’re no closer than when it started.”

“Someone will be.”

“How many of you have to die before then? How many kids in suits do I have to patch up and lie to every goddamn day until they don’t come back? Jisung is _seventeen_.”

“We all know what this means, Kun. We all know one day we won’t come back. But we’re here anyway.”

“How can you say that? How can you be so blasé about the fact that we’ve been hooking you up to anyone like a spare tire?”

It’s never hurt to say before, but he’s never had to feel like it might be wrong, either.

That there might just be times and places and _people_ who aren’t.

He says it anyway.

“Everything is replaceable, Kun.”

*

They have always known this day would come.

When the kaiju kept coming, and kept getting stronger it simply became the truth that they simply would not stop.

There is a Category V emerging from the Breach.

Lucas and Jungwoo are still out of commission with Liberty June in the shop after Ironcrest all but destroyed her. She doesn’t have the capacity to drop again so soon.

The kids in Techno Dream just don’t have the experience yet. They would be nothing but canon-fodder.

Taeyong can see the fear in their Marshall’s eyes as they all stare up at the fluctuating scanners.

“Ranger Lee, are you prepared to Drift?” he asks.

It is a loaded question. One they both understand.

He can hear Taeil’s withdrawn breath somewhere behind him.

“I am, Sir,” Taeyong says.

*

They have no time.

He should be in the Drivesuit room, suiting up with Ten right now.

Except he can’t. Not yet.

He needs to find Doyoung first.

He needs to… to.  

Regardless of whether Doyoung knows about the kaiju or not, there is only one place Doyoung could be right now.

The door to his workshop is ajar when Taeyong approaches, and his heart is already in his throat as he tries to breath in deeply one last time.

The room is painfully quiet when he enters, but it becomes irrelevant to the fact that the workshop is a complete and utter mess.

His tools are scattered and thrown out of every toolbox, monitors are smashed and tables cleared and those not bolted to the ground are all but overturned.

Nothing has remained safe under the force of Doyoung’s rampage.

Taeyong’s breath hitches and he tries desperately not to cry when he finally spots his Doyoungie, sitting on the floor amongst his wreckage looking small and brittle and everything Taeyong has never, ever wanted to see.

His own steps are cautious, like he’s approaching an easily frightened deer as he crosses the room.

But Doyoung doesn’t move, he doesn’t even look up until Taeyong kneels down in front of him.

“Please don’t do this,” Doyoung croaks after a long moment of eerie, painful quiet.

“There’s no one else.”

Doyoung’s expression is fragile and desperate and Taeyong can see that beautiful mind of his blazing through every outcome searching for an alternative.

“There are dozens of them, Taeyong. Hundreds. Get the Tokyo dome to do it. Get Osaka. Get Lima, get the rookies - get _anybody_. It doesn’t have to be you!”

“They’re too far away. It’s coming for Hong Kong, Doyoungie. The kids can’t fight this one.”

“Neither can you!”

“I’m not doing it alone, Johnny and Jaehyun are leading. Mark and Donghyuck are backup. I have Tennie.”

Tears are rolling a constant stream down Doyoung’s face and Taeyong pulls him close, trying not to shake as he fights to ignore the fact they both know.

The kaiju isn’t the real battle.

“I need you to believe in me, Doyoungie.”

Doyoung is shaking in Taeyong’s grasp and all he does is hold him close and wait for the world to catch up to them.

*

Level V Kaiju.

 _Shatterstrike_.

The three of them are waiting long before Taeil and Xiaojun find its signature near the mile.

There are fighter jets on standby.

Nothing like this has ever come out of the Breach before.

None of them know what to expect.

Johnny and Jaehyun stand at the forefront, trying to keep both Ten and Taeyong and Mark and Haechan as far out of range as possible.

Night Knight competes with sheer strength, Neo Dancer with her speed. Techno Dream from a distance.

It’s a fair strategy, he and Ten can move in and out faster than the other two, but fear is a sharp reminder on the back of his tongue.

Taeyong’s heart is beating a fierce tempo.

The drift it strong, pulsing between the two of them.

Taeyong feels the same as always, with a burning spark of adrenaline, but Ten’s worry is a constant flare across the drift, his gaze burning into the side of Taeyong’s helmet every chance he can spare.

None of them are ready when it finally hits.

She is angry and enormous and they are far out of their depth.

Taeil’s voice is a fair warning, counting it down, but when Shatterstrike emerges from the water, none of them are prepared for the sheer size of her or the power of her blows.

Johnny and Jaehyun lead her in to their crossfire before she crests the water, and when she does there is no time left.

The Kaiju’s shrieking is an ear-splitting screech that makes Taeyong’s ears ring.

“Keep her contained!” Jaehyun shouts.

“Haechan-ah, light her up!” Taeyong orders as he exchanges Neo Dancer’s rotating blade for her own canon.

The minutes bleed together in a rush as the kaiju finally turns her attention towards Johnny and Jaehyun who keep attempting to draw her out of striking distance of the two smaller jaegers.

Her rage only lasts so long as they stay out of her reach, however, and Taeyong’s body is already burning with exhaustion when everything goes to shit.

*

“What do you think we’d be doing if there wasn’t any kaiju?” Taeyong asks from his perch on one of Doyoung’s taller toolboxes.

Doyoung snorts and spins on his heel to look at Taeyong. His expression is incredulous, as if he has never asked a stupider question.

But Doyoungie is reaching over his head reaching for glasses that aren’t there, so it kind of ruins the illusion of smug superiority he’s trying for.

Taeyong giggles and taps his collarbone, where Doyoung’s glasses are currently folded in his shirt.

Doyoung makes a face but still picks them up and settles them on his nose.

Taeyong’s heart pulses a little faster.

Doyoung squints when he’s not wearing them, which makes him scrunch his nose like a bunny.

But, Doyoungie wearing his glasses is a whole different level of cute. He looks softer, somehow, more like the genius he should have been if the world wasn’t always at war.

If their life hadn’t been consumed by this tear in the ocean.

 “Why?” Doyoung asks, glancing back.

“Dunno. Drift things.”

“You drift too much,” Doyoung snorts.

*

The kaiju are _always_ smarter than they ever anticipate.

Shatterstrike is no different.

They are pulling back to regroup but before they can get two steps Shatterstrike lunges away from Night Knight suddenly, pulling Techno Dream forward into the water, like an alligator at a riverbank.

They scream, Ten and Taeyong together, and push forward to try and pull the kids back upright.

Johnny and Jaehyun get there first, using the bulk of their almost-broken Jaeger to tear Shatterstrike back up into the air, and Techno Dream with it.

Ten-Taeyong move forward and drive their rotating blade through the back of her and twist out of the way as the kids bring one of their arms up, and with their plasmacanon, start pumping holes into her.

Taeyong’s chest is heaving as he fights to catch his breath, fear running rampantly through all of him as they fight to pry the kaiju off.

It takes three more blows before Shatterstrike is injured enough for Night Knight to pull her off Techno Dream, and with a roar that echoes over the comms, they tear her jaw off at the hinge.

The Kaiju shrieks and flails like the wounded animal she is, before she suddenly explodes with whatever is left in Johnny’s canon.

“Shatterstrike down,” Johnny says, with the seriousness of a small child.

There is a beat of quiet before Tennie starts laughing, bright and immediate, like it had built up inside his chest and had nowhere else to go but out.

He’s gulping in large, heaving breathes and the drift is giddy with it.

Taeyong’s cheeks all of a sudden hurt from smiling.

“You guys fucking suck,” Mark grouses, the three giant jaegers standing around like boys in a school gymnasium.

It’s enough to send Ten and Taeyong off again. 

The world is quiet after that. 

They're all too tired to do much of anything while they wait for the jets to hook them back up and take them back to the Shatterdome.

But the longer they wait the more lightweight Taeyong feels. 

It is a giddy, otherworldly thing that does not fade, it just gets worse. 

His whole body is trembling before long and there is a soft, faraway burning that starts in the tips of his fingers and travels, climbing its way through his veins.

He leans back in his harness and tries to catch his breath to call for Ten. But his tongue feels thick in his mouth and the air feels hot in his lungs; he lets his head fall forward and the world starts going grey. 

There’s a high pitched ringing in his ears and something wet tricking down his chin.

“Yongie?” Ten calls, like he is somehow underwater.

“Taeyong?!”

*

Dongyoung is ten years old when a kaiju reaches Seoul.

There isn’t anywhere they can hide except _down._ Somewhere far enough down it might be able to handle the weight of the buildings up there. And even then, it is a desperate hope.

There are nearly a thousand children crouched in the bottom-most carpark on a street corner in Yangcheon, holding hands and trembling as they all listen to the screaming; flinching every time the walls shake.  

They are down there for days. Two dozen teachers keeping them quiet and still while they listen for any sounds from above.

There is a boy sitting next to him, who flinches every time there is a noise, twisting and turning to keep his eyes on the sounds.  Dongyoung’s Eomma always told him to help those who needed it, and he thinks this boy needs it.

He asks to hold the boys hand while the Kaiju thunders somewhere overhead and it somehow makes him feel better too.

The boy is eleven years old, and quiet, like a mouse.

His name is Taeyong.

*

 

**Author's Note:**

> I like making new friends. :)  
> So if you'd like to come chat with me on twitter I would love that a lot. 
> 
>  
> 
> [@CaptainJacq](%E2%80%9Dwww.twitter.com/captainjacq%E2%80%9D)


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